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He whipped off his coat laid hold of Osmond's epithems, chucked them across the room, saying, "You may just as well squirt rose-water at a house on fire;" drenched his handkerchief with chloroform, sprang upon the patient like a mountain cat and chloroformed him with all his might.
Now the months of Charles Osmond's careful preparation were over, her baptism was over, and a little weary and overdone with all that she had lived through that summer, she had come down to Greyshot expecting rest, and behold, fresh vexations had awaited her! A nice Christian world!
It would have been better for poor Caspar if she had tried a little more to gratify Miss Stackpole; but he didn't say so; he only asked, presently, when her marriage would take place. To which she made answer that she didn't know yet. "I can only say it will be soon. I've told no one but yourself and one other person an old friend of Mr. Osmond's."
"I hope, you know, that you're very very sure. The deuce!" he broke off. "I don't know how to say it." "Yes, you do; you know how to say everything." "Well, it's awkward. I hope you're sure that among Miss Osmond's merits her being a so near her stepmother isn't a leading one?" "Good heavens, Touchett!" cried Lord Warburton angrily, "for what do you take me?"
Two or three large hounds were reposing in front of the hearth, and among them sat little Richard of Normandy, now smoothing down their broad silken ears; now tickling the large cushions of their feet with the end of one of Osmond's feathers; now fairly pulling open the eyes of one of the good-natured sleepy creatures, which only stretched its legs, and remonstrated with a sort of low groan, rather than a growl.
It would certainly have been hard to see what injury could arise to her from the visit she presently paid to Mr. Osmond's hill-top. Nothing could have been more charming than this occasion a soft afternoon in the full maturity of the Tuscan spring.
He leaned back with his legs crossed, lounging and chatting, while Goodwood, more restless, but not at all lively, shifted his position, played with his hat, made the little sofa creak beneath him. Osmond's face wore a sharp, aggressive smile; he was as a man whose perceptions have been quickened by good news.
It would be proper that the woman he might marry should have done something of that sort. Ralph Touchett, in talk with his excellent friend, had rather markedly qualified, as we know, his recognition of Gilbert Osmond's personal merits; but he might really have felt himself illiberal in the light of that gentleman's conduct during the rest of the visit to Rome.
"I've chiefly to do with his relation to me. In that he's excellent." "He's the incarnation of taste," Ralph went on, thinking hard how he could best express Gilbert Osmond's sinister attributes without putting himself in the wrong by seeming to describe him coarsely. He wished to describe him impersonally, scientifically. "He judges and measures, approves and condemns, altogether by that."
So I've passed a great many years here on that quiet plan I spoke of. I've not been at all unhappy. I don't mean to say I've cared for nothing; but the things I've cared for have been definite limited. This would have been rather a dry account of Mr. Osmond's career if Isabel had fully believed it; but her imagination supplied the human element which she was sure had not been wanting.
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